I Know You’re Tired, But Is It The Right Kind?

By Madiha Nabeel

Like every mother I go to bed tired or exhausted or sometimes a bit of both. After serving dinner, doing dishes, preparing lunches, feeding kids, changing kids, putting kids to bed and praying `Ishaa etc., I reach for the bed to end the day. My body needs rest and my mind runs through a list of tasks and tries to organize, prioritize and sort them for the day ahead. But I make it, day in and day out, through school days and weekends, sick days and celebrations, I try to make it. Taking one day at a time. But once the dust of tasks and duties settles and the kids are fast asleep, I can finally hear nothing but my conscious and the self checklist begins (provided that I didn’t pass out by then). The list is long for us mothers because we check whether we did the necessary tasks and whether we did them right? And then did our kids do the right things and did they do them right?

It is when I can see the flaws and take notes for self like I am not serving enough iron rich food nowadays, for example, and from now on I will try to let my kid dress herself etc.

Having painted a regular day ending to you let me share two more pictures from the Quran with you:

Al-Kahf 18:103

قُلْ هَلْ نُنَبِّئُكُم بِٱلْأَخْسَرِينَ أَعْمَٰلًا

Say, [O Muhammad], “Shall we [believers] inform you of the greatest losers as to [their] deeds?

Al-Kahf 18:104

ٱلَّذِينَ ضَلَّ سَعْيُهُمْ فِى ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَهُمْ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُمْ يُحْسِنُونَ صُنْعًا

[They are] those whose effort is lost in worldly life, while they think that they are doing well in work.”

Al-Kahf 18:105

أُولَٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِئَايَٰتِ رَبِّهِمْ وَلِقَآئِهِۧ فَحَبِطَتْ أَعْمَٰلُهُمْ فَلَا نُقِيمُ لَهُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ وَزْنًا

Those are the ones who disbelieve in the verses of their Lord and in [their] meeting Him, so their deeds have become worthless; and We will not assign to them on the Day of Resurrection any importance.

And the second picture from Al-Ghashiyah

وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَيِذٍ خَـشِعَةٌ

عَامِلَةٌ نَّاصِبَةٌ

تَصْلَى نَاراً حَامِيَةً

Some faces, that Day will be humiliated. Laboring, weary. They will enter in the hot blazing Fire. (88:2-4)

So on the day of judgement there will be some groups of people who will be waiting for the result of the worldly test and they will be tired and exhausted. The effort and struggle they did will be evident on their faces but the result will not something expected. They will not be rejoicing rather they will be overcome with regret and guilt. Imagine them like a champion on a losing team who made all the right efforts but targeted the wrong goal. Looking at their effort weighing nothing, looking at hell screaming in rage in front of them, they will realize they did terribly wrong.

So let’s do one thing when we go to bed. Let’s check whether we have made at least some effort in the right direction. This is the thought that changed my Duas. Now I pray, ‘oh Allah make me tired on the right path’. Because the older you get the more you accept the fact that this world is a test and not paradise. Also it is not meant to be paradise but like a test center it presents you with situations to test and record your answers. So you seriously start working out the solution to the test.